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Atonement

Wendy C. Williford

    She was dead by the time he got there.
    Geoffrey came to, gasping for breath. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. The explosion happened so quickly, he barely had time to hit the ground or cover his head as he heard the undeniable whirling of the M-30 overhead. It was the Russians, no mistake about it. After six years, it was clear they were out for revenge and these small German towns, innocent or not, were going to clearly feel their long awaited wrath. Kösel was just a step along the road to Berlin, but that didn’t matter. They were fair game. Everything was at this point.
    Clearing the plaster from his eyes, Geoffrey lifted his shoulders and looked around the hallway of the abandoned apartment building. He felt a twinge in his neck; he didn’t realize he’d been knocked to the ground so hard. The lights hanging from the ceiling had been knocked out as well, only a small light shone from the busted window at the end of the hallway. He stretched his head back, looking in the opposite direction. Another window, a tree blocking most of the light, filtered in a thin cloud of dust through its branches. Geoffrey wiggled his fingers, happy to feel them, then his toes, pleased they were still there.
    Taking in a breath, his lungs intact, Geoffrey pulled out a picture, secured in thick cellophane, from the pin on his inner lapel. He stared into Carys’ eyes, stared at her thin face, the blonde locks curled on her shoulders and looking smart in her tweed jacket with a thin layer of dark lipstick covering her mouth. He smiled, wishing he could tell her he’d see her soon.
    He let out a healthy cough as more dust settled from the ceiling. From the looks of it, the building hadn’t been inhabited in months, yet his orders were clear, go in, find civilians and find a spot for a makeshift rendezvous point for the next few days. His lieutenant had lost his mind. The sleepless nights had finally gotten to him. Ever since they successfully crossed into Germany they were on heightened alert, despite the fact Hitler and his Nazis were retreating. Geoffrey knew, somehow oddly inside, it would only be a matter of days before Berlin surrendered. If only that happened, he could go home.
    Geoffrey sat up, brushing the dust off his clothes. His ears still rang; the crick in his neck wasn’t doing much for the headache. He had no room to complain and he knew it – he still had a head. After eyeing the giant hole in the wall, he realized it wasn’t a window after all. Those Russian howitzers had power behind all those years of waiting for revenge.
    Geoffrey took in a deep breath. “Is anybody here?”
    He waited. Nothing returned but his echoed voice. He smiled, amused with himself. If anyone was there, they probably couldn’t understand English. If they did, he doubted they could make it past his thick Welsh accent.
    Geoffrey rubbed his eyes and thought. “Ist...jemand...hier?”
    No response. Geoffrey stood up as fast as his body would allow, taking a few moments to get his balance back. He checked his uniform for blood, relieved there was none past the nicks and scrapes on his hands. He bent down, picked up his Webley revolver lying by his foot, and checked the chamber, uncertain if it had been fired. Everything was still a haze. Satisfied, he put the gun back in its holster.
    The hallway had several doors, some shut tightly, some half open, others appeared to have been kicked in. Geoffrey walked to the end of the hall, sidestepping the pieces of blue painted wall and wood, glass from the lights and little pieces of molded plaster from the ceiling. As he did, he searched himself for his canteen and flashlight. A noise caught his attention, something faint, like a child crying. Geoffrey held his breath and stared through the dust, looking for a cat or a puppy which probably made the noise. But nothing appeared, nothing moved. Just as he was about to chuck it up to his imagination, he heard the whirling again. He made it to the ground and covered his head before the building rocked.

    The loud blow of the 9:13 A.M train whistle took Geoffrey out of his stupor. He had only blinked for a moment and haziness washed over him. He almost forgot where he was until he turned and looked at Carys with the dark suitcase in her arms, her nails digging into the worn-down leather. He reached out and grabbed the case as his fingers brushed against hers. They were cold, had been for a while now.
    “I don’t suppose I’ll have much use for it when I get there.” His hands shook, he was close to losing his voice. “It’s me dad’s, you know. What if they won’t let me on the boat with it?”
    Carys cleared her throat. Her eyes gave her away. He knew she hated it when he protested like this. “They have to allow you some personal items. I know it’s France and they’re having their own troubles, but surely they know you need socks and,” she cleared her throat again. It didn’t take much make her voice crack these days. “Other things.”
    She let go of the case, her nails scrapping across the leather echoed in his ears. “I’ve made you a lunch. Don’t eat it on the boat. Wait until you get on the train in France.”
    Geoffrey nodded, feeling like a child whose mother was seeing him off on his first day at school. He wanted to kiss her but held back. Something about the perfect red lipstick against her pale complexion told him he couldn’t.
    “I guess this is where I promise to come back alive,” Geoffrey said after he couldn’t handle watching her eyes bear into the black steal of the train any longer.
    Carys nodded again, her eyes revealing nothing. “I do want you to come back alive.” Her voice didn’t have the desperation Geoffrey hoped for. “But they’re killing innocent people over there. Babies. That’s what you’re fighting for - the people who can’t fight for themselves.”
    Geoffrey nodded. Despite his better judgment, he kissed her cheek, giving back the warmth she had lost months before. He wouldn’t come back until he knew he was worthy again.

    Geoffrey let out a sigh of relief. The time, no huge explosion, no large fragments of wall to the head, just the rumble and stirring of dust.
    Looking up, he let out a scream, “Nobody’s here, goddamnit!” He beat his fists against the floor in unison with the cry. His breath caught in his throat; he looked around, hoping to catch it again.
    Geoffrey scrambled to his feet. “Ist jemand hier?” His fingers slid in the direction of his gun. He took one step forward, squinting down the hall.
    Again, the noise, this time fainter, muffled. Three doors down on the left side, toward the Russian-made hole in the wall, Geoffrey heard crying. He stepped toward the door, slightly ajar, watching his steps, holding his breath. His fingertips rested upon the knob and it opened, as if the air was giving him welcome.
    “Is there somebody here?” he said, not even attempting to butcher the German language. He looked around, searching the dark. In the corner of the room, he saw the outline of a window, the light of the sun seeping past the thick closed curtains. Geoffrey took careful steps across the dirty hardwood floor and threw the curtains open, disturbing the months of dust covering them.
    He turned, his eyes examining the room and a knot caught in his throat. He was surprised he hadn’t tripped over them. A woman laid on the floor, her arms lying gently at her side, blood draining from her wrists. Beside her, a boy of about six years and a girl of about four, their wrists equally gashed open. The little girl was on her side, a thumb in her mouth and her other hand twisted up in her mother’s sleeve, sobbing against the blood. Beside them, a shard of a porcelain tea cup laid on the ground, stained with their blood.
    Geoffrey fell to his knees, the air knocked out of him. He placed his hands over the woman’s face, calling to her, pleading for a response.
    “Madam!” The only response was her weakened breath. “Madam?” he repeated, “Frau?”
     She opened her eyes, slowly at first, glancing around, eyes crinkling as she tried to focus on his face. Finally, her eyes filled with tears as the sobs escaped her lips.
    “Nein, nein,” she cried out. She brought her hands to her face, the blood streaking down her arms and against her cheeks. When she gained some strength, she attempted to push him away.
    “No, madam, I’m here to help you.” Geoffrey grabbed her balled up hands feebly striking against his chest. As he did, he got a better look at her. She was young, at most in her late twenties. Her black hair was tied in a bun, nestled in the nape of her neck, locks and wisps out of place and matted against her forehead and tear-streaked cheeks. The panels of her pink, conservative blouse were held together by one button, the others ripped off. Her dark wool skirt stopped at her knees, tattered, and it didn’t take Geoffrey long to figure out what had happened when he saw the streaks of dried blood around her knees and climbing in smudges and claw marks toward her thighs, the wool skirt hiding the rest.
    Geoffrey looked her in the eyes, his own betraying the pity they held.
    “Madam, I’m sorry.” His voice was gentle, as if to a cowering animal. He placed her hands back to her side. She was losing her strength to fight. “I’m here to help you.”
    The woman turned to her side, stopped by the little boy lying beside her. She opened her eyes to him and moaned.
    “Ma’am, let me help you.” He looked around the room, still shadowed in darkness, but lit enough to find a table cloth lying next to a broken table. He crawled over, grabbed it and pulled out his knife. When the woman saw it, her eyes widened again and she screamed out.
    “No, madam, frau, I have to help you. It’s my job.” He started cutting strips from the cloth. “Help. You know, hilfe; heilen.”
    As the knife ran along the long grain of the cloth, the woman’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. At least she was passed out when he started stitching her flesh back together.

    The folded up advertisement Jonesy handed to him asked if he wanted to kill Germans. He stared at it, confused, not remembering when he had ever seen something so blatantly advertising death, asking him to break the sixth commandment. Geoffrey glanced back up and he shrugged, not knowing quite what to say. He was still new to this pub and these friends. The war seemed more England’s problem, not Wales. How could he possible say it wasn’t really his concern?
    Better them than you, David answered. Make your own destiny if you can. Anyway, it’s better to join up than wait and be conscripted. He made a good point.
    He looked over to Carys’s sallow complexion as she sipped her ale, recovering, yet still fighting off the infection. Geoffrey and Carys had been spared, having not made it to London before the Blitz, not having to run from the bombs flying through the air, nor having to scrounge through the streets seeking shelter and food. But they felt akin to their problems, as if they could bleed the same blood as the Londoners now.
    Before Geoffrey had a chance to crumple up the paper and toss it, Carys peered up, as serious as he could ever remember. “Perhaps you should.” She practically finished off what was left in her glass. “After all, you’ve got to consider what’s best for everybody.”
    By the time the night had come to an end, everybody in the pub had bought him a drink.

***

    Geoffrey managed to wake the woman as soon as the bandages were in place. Instead of crying, like he imagined, she simply stared at him, her stunned eyes working out a puzzle in her mind. He was already wrapping the tiny bandages around the boy’s left wrist. On the ground, the sewing kit from the box she kept in the nightstand laid on the floor beside his leg. Black thread was neatly sewn in a criss-cross pattern against her son’s right wrist. She looked at her own, the bandaged cloth wrapped so tightly she could barely move her wrists at all; acknowledging the pain would be too great if she tried. She looked to her left and saw the girl, her wrists wrapped as well, her eyes wide with tears, her dark hair cascading around her face, still sucking her thumb.
    The woman turned back to her son, her dry lips cracking open. “Dieter?”
    Geoffrey looked up and smiled, attempting to ease her apprehension. She ignored him and turned to the boy again. “Dieter?”
    “Is that your boy’s name, then?” Geoffrey asked.
    She glanced up, eyes vacant, filled with contempt. “Russe?”
    Geoffrey shook his head. “British. Well, Welsh, actually. You know, Englaender? Sprechen sie Englisch?”
    She shook her head.
    Geoffrey gave a nervous laugh. “You must have figured that I don’t speak German by now. Deutsche?”
    She nodded. “Ja, deutsche.”
    There was nothing more to say, nothing he could try. Her gaze didn’t leave him, he knew it wouldn’t. He sat in front of her, cross-legged, and shoved his hands underneath his thighs, hoping his action would prove she was safe.
    “My name is Geoffrey, by the way.” He gave a nervous grin. She squinted and shook her head. He repeated his name while pointing at his chest, then slid his hand underneath himself again. She nodded.
    “Meta,” she said. She raised one finger towards the boy. “Dieter,” then to the girl. “Leyna.”
    Geoffrey smiled and nodded. “Pretty names.”
    They were locked in silence again, starring into each other’s faces, as if to anticipate each other’s actions. Gunfire echoed outside, every now and then striking against the concrete walls outside. In a welcomed moment of silence, Geoffrey broke the stare with Meta. He looked around, finally giving himself a chance to take it in. The apartment was small, only big enough for the small family, nothing more than a one room flat with a small kitchen in the corner, a sofa and radio in the other, a large bed across the other side. The bed wasn’t made, the sheets thrown to the ground. The broken table from where he pulled the cloth laid next to the broken chairs. A metal wash tub sat in the kitchen area, holding the charred remains of the dining chairs and a half burned leg of the table. The sofa along the wall drew his attention next. It was small, its fabric covered in a thin layer of dirt. It was meant to match the mint colored fleur-de-lis textured paper clinging to the wall. Above that, a small testament of the family remained: a photo of the woman, the children and a man, whom Geoffrey could only guess was her husband. The faces, full stoic smiles and contentment stared back at him. It was a perfect picture, a perfect husband and wife, and their perfect children.
    Geoffrey looked down when he felt the woman’s eyes on him. Their images still hung in his eyes. Her lips parted, almost with a smile, “Mein herr.”
    “Lebendig?” he said, not sure if it was the right word for alive. He was afraid to ask, afraid to know if he was with her or out there fighting – fighting against him or his brothers. Geoffrey wondered if he manned a bomber during the blitz and the raids, or could he be amongst the ones who marched into France. Could he have been the German man he had shot a few days before, whose face he didn’t recognize when he held up his gun and aimed for his nose.
    The woman shook her head, her eyes revealing a pain he hadn’t yet seen. “Gestorben,” she whispered.
    “Nazi?” The word escaped him before he realized it.
    “Nein.” Her sadness intensified and she shook her head with emphatic strength. “Gut. Gut man. Gut vater.”
    Geoffrey was the first to break the stare, almost as if he was ashamed. He shoved his hands deeper under his legs, wondering what was taking his mates so long to catch up with him, hoping they were still somewhere out there.

    Geoffrey promised he’d come back alive, but wondered if she wanted him to keep that promise. It had been eight months since he left her at the train station, thinking he was only going to France, not knowing how wrong he really was. France seemed like a lifetime away, a world apart. Kösel was the furthest from his mind, let alone a woman intent on killing herself and her children. Daft woman, he thought. Even worse, what a stupid, arrogant bastard he’d been. He rubbed his eyes and tried to block out the thoughts.
    He couldn’t remember Carys’ smile, having not seen it for weeks before he joined the army. He found her in the café after he enlisted. He sat down and unknown minutes passed before he spoke as she stirred the spoon round and round in her tea, adding more sugar every seven stirs.
    “I leave in a few days,” he said when the waitress brought him a cup of Earl Grey. He tried to hide the fear in his voice, wondered if she could detect that he wasn’t leaving for duty, but running from guilt.
    Her stolid expression revealed nothing. “Paris is pretty this time of year.” She finally took a sip of her tea. “Or was.”
    “Hey,” he said, taking her thin hand. “When this is over, we’ll honeymoon there. Make a fresh start of it.”
    “Perhaps.”
    She pulled her hand away and went back to stirring her tea. He didn’t deserve her, didn’t deserve her love – the love of a wife, the love of a mother. All he could do was hope she’d forgive him. Or would she consider him more of a monster for what he was doing for his country?
    Although he had spared her every chance he had, he knew she’d see him for the hypocrite he was. The week after, when the train pulled up to the station, he wanted nothing more than to grab her hand and head back to Wales. He just couldn’t do it, seek out an enemy to kill. He didn’t have it in him.
    Now, these many months later, it took more than his two hands to count the Germans he had killed. He couldn’t determine if God separated friend from enemy. As he looked at the little boy and girl and the blood-soaked cloth he used to clean their wounds, he wondered if murder for your country covered up the sin of murder itself.
    If he could save them, all of them, maybe it would set right the others that were lost along the way.
    But would Carys consider the blood repaid?



    Dieter woke up and cried for his mother, much to Geoffrey’s relief. She turned to look at him, raking the hair away from his forehead with her fingertips, her hand trembling as she moved. Geoffrey didn’t worry about the children. Their wounds were less severe, barely cut through the fatty tissue of their arms. Meta’s were worse; she obviously meant it when she scraped the jagged edge of the tea cup along her wrists. She wanted to die. She was broken, her body disgraced. Unclean.
    Geoffrey picked up the broken cup, smeared the drying blood away and found the delicate hand painted purple anemones and imagined the thin brush that made them. He could see the cup sitting in Meta’s hand as she sipped her fine tea, perhaps in the mornings with her husband before the children woke up.
    He sympathized with her decision to kill herself. Her husband was dead, from what he could gather. The Russians, his own allies, half destroyed her body. What would stop them from coming back and finishing the job, or perhaps doing the same to her children? No, he couldn’t blame her. He understood desperation. And now he understood that his desperation amounted to absolutely nothing.
    Dieter turned to Geoffrey, his dark eyes concentrating on him, not understanding who he was but knowing he was a good person. The staring contest was on, Geoffrey soon realized. After a moment of strange thoughts running through his head, wondering what this little boy could be so fascinated with – the shiny buttons on his dark green uniform, the strange way his hat sat upon his head, the blue of his eyes, the gun in his holster that he hadn’t once withdrawn or waved at them – Geoffrey finally blinked. Dieter smiled widely, his front two teeth missing.
    Pleased to have made a new friend, Dieter looked up to his mother again. She was going in and out of consciousness. Geoffrey had done all he could, but she was losing the battle against her own will. The bandages, white and clean when he first wrapped her wrists, were now seeping through with blood, despite the stitches he’d carefully sewn. There was nothing he could’ve done for the artery she carefully hit. Despite his thoughts of moving them when the firing outside ceased, he knew it was inevitable.
    She would die.

    The pregnancy was unplanned. The engagement, their impending marriage was not. Their long, life together was planned. The mistake they made was not. The flat they considered moving into outside Chelsea was waiting for them; they already had the money saved for the deposit. It was no big deal to leave Wales. After all, finding work for such an affluent family was a dream for both of them. Geoffrey had a good head for business and numbers, and would do well wherever he went, especially if that somewhere was at Mr. Lewellyn’s Bank. The Lewellyns took them both in. It was good of them to remember their roots, keep it in the family, so to say, happy to have their children raised by a proper Welsh nanny. Carys was both, Welsh and proper. Even when they laid together in each other’s arms, he would look at her and notice, lovingly, how pure and simple she was, even down to the scattering of freckles across her nose.
    He loved telling her about his day. “I opened four accounts,” or “I deposited a check for Lord Bassington.” The highlight was always meeting an M.P. or a wife. Carys would smile, squeeze his hand and set his stew in front of him.
    “The children simply exhausted me at the park today. It was good kite weather,” she would say, and he’d know she was being modest. She lived for those children, lived for nurturing and teaching them everything she could.
    Pregnancy was far from either of their minds. Yet, the solution was quick to hit his lips, and surprisingly easy to come up with. Yet, some things aren’t easily solved, he understood now. It was nothing but his pride that led them to that room in the East End, with the dirty cot folded down in the corner, and the makeshift surgery tools they used on her. He knew she couldn’t understand the risks. They would’ve lost everything, cast into the streets like trash. He couldn’t have Carys living like that. She deserved more.
    He worked for days trying to get the blood out of her new dress, the one she bought after months of careful saving – a little indulgence she allowed herself after so diligently saving for the flat and her wedding dress. Now, the savings were gone and he was stupid for thinking she still placed her pounds, shillings and pence in that old tea tin anymore. It was gone, the hopes with it.
    Geoffrey looked down, eyeing the fine traces of Meta’s blood still embedded under his fingernails. With her blood on his hands, was he mocking God, or was God mocking him?

***

    He didn’t notice how quiet it had gotten outside until she started coughing, her breathing becoming shallower by the minute. The bandages were soaked, bleeding through onto the floor again. Geoffrey sat against the wall, watching them, wanting to get away from them, but wanting to make sure they were alright. The real problem that plagued him was where he could take them. It wasn’t as if he could carry them all along the whole length of the road to Berlin or find a refugee shelter nearby. He bit his lip, trying to hide a funny thought. He knew what his mates would say: why was it his concern what happened to a German woman who tried to kill herself and her kids? He wasn’t there to preserve her way of life, but his own. Forget them, get yourself home to Carys. She’s the only one that matters.
    The girl, Leyna, turned over and pulled her thumb out of her mouth long enough to concentrate on Geoffrey. He couldn’t even smile at the child, didn’t think he even had the right to. He looked away, and stared at the wall.
    Leyna wasn’t deterred. She rose to her feet with a strength that surprised him, all the while smiling brightly despite the tears that streaked her cheeks. She reached him and sat down in his lap, adjusting herself until she was comfortable in the crook of his arm, and her tiny fingers found the shiny buttons of his jacket. Geoffrey looked down, and felt an odd sense of comfort, perhaps a comfort that even matched hers.
    As he stared at the child, the short gasps grew louder, and hypnotic. He looked up to Meta a few feet away, the pool of blood coagulating by her fingertips. She managed to look at him again, her eyes reflecting that vacant, reproachful look that he hadn’t seen since he left Carys, her white skin reflecting nothing else from the sun streaming through the window.
    The instructions were simple, her raspy voice unyielding. “You. Kinder. Go.”
    He wasn’t shocked when he heard it, didn’t think much about it or wonder if she meant what she said or was just putting together English words she’d once heard. It didn’t matter, he understood it all the same.
    Geoffrey searched through the room for additional blankets, taking only the cleanest one from the bed – a patchwork quilt which he could one day tell the children about, perhaps help them discover their heritage, help them not forget their mother. Another sheet he found he knew he’d have to use to wrap Meta’s dead body in.
    Geoffrey picked up the children, careful not to disturb their wounds and wrapped them in the quilt. Dieter simply wrapped his arm around Geoffrey’s neck while Leyna smiled, grabbed his lapel with one hand and stuck her thumb in her mouth. He held her tight and promised he’d keep her safe, keep them both safe. He could only hope that Carys would make the same promise, not to him, but to them. It was the only chance left him to prove he was worthy once again.
    When Geoffrey and the children left the apartment, the Russians had already moved on.

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