The Matchmaker of Kenmare (40 page)

Over her shoulder I saw something. I walked past her, to the very edge of the wood, to a sign on a tree. It said, amid smudges,
DIR. BAUGNEZ
, but no arrows, nothing else, nothing to give us direction. From behind a tree I looked out across the U and saw nobody, nothing but a wide, white, silent plain of thin snow. Looking back, I heard no sound of pursuit.

We agreed to stay just within the trees and pursue the forest line to take ourselves west. What choice did we have? We needed to stay as concealed as possible. Side by side this time, we set off along one leg of the U, more conscious now of how wet we were, and how cold, and how incongruous we would look to anybody who found us. And the wind was coming up, whistling here, sighing there.

After an endless, stumbling trudge, and just as I began to panic about my freezing clothes, Kate stopped.

“What’s that?” She pointed—a hut, twenty yards inside the tree line, a not insubstantial hut. We had reached the belly of the U—and the center of this legend that our lives had become.

Neither of us could read the language on the door notice, and in alarm we wondered again where in God’s name we had been traveling. (Later, when my mind came back to me, I reasoned that it had been printed in one of the Belgian dialects.)

The hut, closed but with no lock, contained nothing. Worst of all, it had no fireplace. And no lighting of any kind, not even a window. In fact, it seemed to have no purpose that we could define, and there we stood, in a wooden building, measuring about twelve feet by ten, with four walls, a roof, a moist dirt floor, and nothing else.

Its builder, however, had made it windproof. I held my hands to the walls here and there, and not a draft could I feel. And so soundproof; we cocked our heads and listened and heard nothing. We could hardly see each other in the gloom.

Everything I wore had become as wet as the sea.

Kate said, “I’m soaked too. To the skin.”

We had no materials to light a fire. We had no means of drying or changing our clothes. We had nothing on which to sit. All we could do was look at each other and shrug.

I opened the door, then shut it fast. The howling of the wind made us appreciate the shelter.

“There must,” I said, “be a purpose to this hut.”

“A woodsman? A forester?” She walked around touching the walls. “It’s very dry.”

“Except for the floor,” I said.

“My belly is touching my backbone I’m so hungry,” she said.

“We should probably stay here until morning,” I said.

“And anyway, if we had a fire”—she looked up at the planked ceiling—“we wouldn’t be able to see each other for smoke.”

I opened the door again, not quite knowing why, and asked out loud, “What is it used for? What’s the point of it?” Something was arresting me. “There must be a purpose.” I stepped out into the wind; a branch somewhere cracked, and I jumped. “I’m going to look around,” I said.

Hugging the walls, I walked down one side to the rear, where loose branches almost tripped me. Looking into the woods, I saw extraordinary effects—some trees waving like crowds, the rest tranquil and still. In the clearing, snow began to fall again, whipped by the wind. Treetops waved, and white scuds flew from them. I worried about animals, predators; I worried about soldiers. For any of them we made a fine prize, and easy to catch.

By now I knew that I was searching for something—perhaps a toolbox, where foresters stored axes; perhaps another shed, more fitted for habitation. Looking down, I saw no footprints—and yet somebody had spread broken and heavy branches at the rear wall of the hut; I could see white fangs of wood where they’d been cut from their trees. I bent and lifted two of the branches—and found the unknown thing for which I’d searched, a wooden trapdoor, as in a fairy tale or a pirate’s yarn; it even had an iron ring with which to open it.

With the trapdoor open, I could see nothing, other than a small ladder, down which I climbed. A flashlight hung from a rung halfway down. When I shone the beam, I saw that the underground room ran the length of the hut and underneath it. It had recently been inhabited. No stove here either, no fireplace, but masses of blankets and clothing, enough for a dozen people. It felt safe. I ran back up, fetched a shivering Kate, and when she had descended I closed the trapdoor on her. Snow had begun to fall, powerful and thick.

As I feared, the ring almost shone, the planks of the trapdoor looked
inviting; how could I camouflage that? I must have spent two or three minutes pulling branches so that they covered most of the trapdoor in a natural sort of way. When I squeezed myself down, I kept the trapdoor opening as narrow as possible. I hoped that the angle at which I’d left some of the branches would jerk them across to cover the trapdoor if I took it down fast. On the ladder I heard the branches fall over; I pushed up gingerly and felt that sufficient weight had fallen; the snow would do the rest.

Now everything felt still—and unexpectedly warmer. I soon discovered the reason for the warmth—double walls, a thick wooden floor, a dense ceiling. Whoever had designed this place meant people to stay in it for long periods, or in terrible weather.

With the flashlight I explored, found another flashlight and a carbide lamp. Now we had light, and we inspected the place. We found bone-dry clothing for men, women, and children, and we began to change. Somebody had even supplied rough towels, and I could hear Kate’s teeth chattering as she undressed from her sodden clothes.

With her back to me, she began to towel herself dry, and then she turned and said, “No. You do it. And I’ll do it for you.”

We might have been husband and wife, so tenderly but naturally did we dry each other.

No food; we found empty tins, but nothing edible. I spread blankets thick on the floor, and, more warm and comfortable than I’d ever expected to be, we lay down, side by side but not touching.

I guessed it was four or five o’clock, with night falling headlong outside. Kate fell asleep immediately. I lay awake, attempting to think a way forward. Before long, I also fell asleep.

How can you tell the time when you’re beneath the ground? And have no watch or clock? It might have been midnight. It might have been only an hour later. I woke to a noise above. Yes, a noise.

I listened. Then I sat up. And crept in my new and awkward clothes. Across the pitch-black floor. I listened again. A tapping. Strong tapping. With something sharp. On the trapdoor right above my head. Not rhythmic. Nor calculated. More an irregular thumping.

And now snuffling. An animal. Without doubt. A deer, probably. I climbed the ladder. To press upward on the door. Above my head the tapping stopped. I heard the big snuffle, and then the sound of a little gallop away.

Followed by a shot. Muffled, but a shot. No doubt about it. Then three more shots. Then men talking. Laughing.

Wide-eyed, Kate sat up. I lit and shaded the flashlight to see her face, then shone it on mine, then crawled to her.

“Shhhhhh.”

“They missed.”

I whispered, “What?”

“They fired at a deer and missed.”

“How do you know?”

“They’re teasing each other,” she whispered.

Above our heads, boots stomped. They were in the hut. I switched off the flashlight. One, two, three, four, five, six pairs of boots. Or so it felt. A few feet above our heads. The aroma of cigarette smoke reached us.

We sat as though paralyzed. She took my arm and wrapped it around her. I tightened my grip. Five, then, fifteen minutes—or hours, how could we tell? They had a radio of some kind; I heard the unmistakable static.

“They’re moving on. The snow is heavy. They think they’re near us,” she said. “And that anyway we won’t survive. But they know it’s us they’re following.”

Neither one of us moved a muscle. When we did, I couldn’t flex my arms or legs. They had gone. We waited and waited—yes, they’d gone.

She slept first; I kept watch. In the darkness I could almost see her face; I never took my eyes off it.

My next passage of sleep took me close to oblivion. I have no knowledge or feeling of how long I slept. When I awoke, Kate was sitting on a camp stool, the carbide lamp beside her, just looking at me. She held out a book, a small, green book with a Star of David on the leather cover. Now that the war is long over, we know the truth about that underground hiding place—and it saved our lives too.

For a moment, I couldn’t raise the trapdoor. And then I remembered: snow. I pushed harder and opened it an inch. At least a foot of snow had fallen. The wind had died, and the sun shone into my eyes. But I was facing west, and that meant another night in the woodland cellar. I put the time at around three o’clock.

We’d slept a great deal. In retrospect, we’d been shrewd because we’d needed the sleep. And this time we both slept at the same time, and this time nothing disturbed us. Our bodies adjusted. We were dehydrated, but because we’d had no food, we needed no toilet facilities, and hadn’t since we’d begun our escape.

Morning, bright and cold, would energize us as much as it could. We stretched, yawned, checked our clothing. Most of it had dried a good deal, though our coats remained damp. We decided to continue in the clothes we had found, although I retrieved my black coat. Miss Begley wore a dress of brown serge that came down below her knees; I had corduroy pants, a heavy woolen shirt, and a thick vest with pockets. Our shoes had to continue; we found none.

With something close to pleasure, I recalled that we were still near the verge of the wood and could, today at any rate, see where we were going. When we came out to the forest’s rim, the light almost blinded us. In the long hollow of the forest’s U shape, new, deep snow lay higher than before and stretched as far as the horizon.

Not a living creature could we see—not a bird, not a deer. The snow had also obliterated the tracks of our pursuers.

We talked through a simple plan—to walk along that forest edge until we came to some manageable terrain. And we’d stay just inside the trees, so that we couldn’t be seen, yet we could see anybody coming up through the open spaces of the U. If military, we would have to be careful—who would they be? German? Allies?

Five or six hours we walked, on relatively easy ground, and Kate’s
bag seemed not as heavy. Babes in the Wood, we were, and I recalled the lines from a childhood poem that used to make me cry.
And when they were dead, the robins so red, brought strawberry leaves, and over them spread
. No strawberry leaves now, but dying remained a significant possibility.

Kate remained silent while walking. When I asked her, for the third anxious time, “Are you all right?” she nodded.

“I’m conserving my breath,” she said.

What was she thinking? I couldn’t read her mood. All I could sense about her may be summarized by the word
determination
. At one moment, on the crest of a sharp little slope, when we stopped to rest, I reached over and hugged her and held her.

We walked all day. How we kept going I can’t say. In the midafternoon, she began talking to herself, loud enough for me to hear.

“Constant Occupation Prevents Dreadful Temptation” was the first thing she said.

“What?”

She answered with, “Exercise Patience in one moment of Anger and you’ll escape many hours of Regret.”

“Are you keeping your spirits up?” I asked.

“Lose the saddle, not the horse,” she said, but didn’t mean it as a reply.

“Kate—stop,” I said, and pulled her to a standstill. Her face had turned blue.

“One today is worth two tomorrow.”

“Kate!” She looked up at my face but didn’t see me. The brown eyes had begun to cloud over with a heavy glaze, almost like a gray film. She was babbling, and light saliva frosted her mouth.

“Poverty waits at the Gates of Idleness,” she said. “Error Clouds the Windows of the Mind,” and she began to weep, as though the clouds in her eyes had turned to rain.

I inspected her. Feet bleeding. Shoes had leather strips flittering from them. One shin with a horrible gash. A thin stripe of blood drew a dark line down one cheek where a tree branch thin as a fingernail had reached down and scraped her. Nose and eyes blue, eyes blinking all the time against the glare.

What could I do? I wrapped her inside my arms. I rocked her from side to side, and rocked her again. She began to feel limp. I picked her
up, got her onto my shoulders, and carried her through the wood, one hand gripping her legs to stabilize her, the other carrying her bag.

Did I feel her weight? No. And when I go searching my memory now to try for a more accurate answer to the question, I still can’t feel it. She either fell asleep on my shoulders or she passed out. Lifting my feet high above the snow, I set a deliberate pace. I reconciled myself to one thought: If the soldiers come, we can’t escape. And it had begun to snow again, the same heavy, drifting flakes, intent on covering the world.

Traveling inside the tree line proved too difficult. Staggering with tiredness and freight, I bumped into trees, and I feared that I might hit her head off something. I opted for the open skies, and took a little comfort from the fact that nobody could see me in this snow. The slope helped too, not too steep, not too rocky—in fact by now the older snow had frozen so hard that I almost had a firm base beneath my boots.

Down the hillside I went, trying to keeping my stumbles to a minimum. If I fell forward, I had no means of protecting her head—and perhaps not the strength to get up again and lift her onto my shoulders. The world had by now turned entirely white—the sky, the land, the two beset human beings.

Kate Begley had gods on her team of Life—because, with such daylight as still glimmered through the white veils beginning to quit the sky, I hit level ground—and a gate. From there, a secluded lane appeared, so shaded by trees that it had almost no snow. Under this thick canopy, the
lane petered to the edge of the wood where I walked—but from where? It seemed respectable enough to be worth following—and I had no options. The gate had no catch; easy as a door, it swung open, and I applauded the smoothness of the track.