“And yetwhat, Father?”
“Sometimes it takes a strong man to acknowledge that he is weak.”
Finn shook his head. “I’d rather die a hero than live as a weakling.”
“I pray that isn’t your fate.”
So did Finn, but he wasn’t part of the war anymore. All he could do now was pray for peace and the chance to someday go back to his small-town kite store and maybe win Delia back for good.
37
Delia soon learned that she couldn’t remain in the Hotel Ravenstein after Bertie left. Too many local people knew she worked for the CRB, and they came to her with pleas for extra rations. Her work preparing reports for New York were continually interrupted by a steady stream of supplicants and their heartrending appeals. The sweet young lady who cleaned the hotel pleaded on behalf of her twin boys, only three years old and not as robust as they ought to be. The mandolin player at the bistro across the street had a sick mother, who had been advised to eat more meat. People from all over Brussels came to the hotel to beg her for help.
And Delia’s inability to speak French proved no barrier, for they brought along translators to make their appeals. Yet compassion was all that Delia could offer, and she took the time to hear each person’s case before gently turning them away. Still, it was beginning to sap her spirit. She wished she could magically double in size the scant rations shipped in from Rotterdam. It was easier to move across town where nobody knew her. Besides, she didn’t need the grandeur of the Hotel Ravenstein. The Marollen District was more affordable and charming in its own way.
After she moved, she kept to herself and never revealed her role with the CRB, which wasn’t difficult since Delia didn’t actually distribute the food. That was handled in Rotterdam, where CRB staff off-loaded the ships and transferred food onto barges to be distributed throughout occupied Belgium. Delia’s job was to confirm that the shipments had arrived at their destination and then compile the statistical report to be sent to New York.
Because her cramped hotel room hadn’t the space to lay out her paperwork, she leased an office that belonged to a lawyer conscripted by the Germans years earlier. She felt guilty about taking advantage of the situation, until the man’s wife appeared and assured her that the revenue would be greatly appreciated.
Most of the books lining the shelves of the office were printed in French, but there were a few American lawbooks, and they made her feel at home. With a typewriter, a stack of legal texts, and a view of a flower seller’s stall across the street, it was the perfect place in which to work.
She came to love the quaint neighborhood with its flea market, antique shops, and cafés. The cafés tended to be filled with too many German officers for Delia to feel comfortable, so she settled for the same rations as ordinary Belgians. Subsisting on CRB rations gave her firsthand experience of the difficulty living under foreign occupation. She lived on little more than a weekly sack of oats, a tin of sardines, and a loaf of bread. Sometimes she longed for a thick pastrami sandwich like she had in New York, but these rations were surely a bounty compared to what Finn received.
At least she had won him an hour of outdoor time each day. She had taken her request to the Swiss diplomatic representative stationed in Brussels, knowing that a formal complaint from a neutral power was the best way to win better conditions for Finn and the other prisoners. She had requested better food, access to doctors and medicine, and the chance to spend time in the fresh air each day. She provided the Swiss delegate with all the proper citations from the Hague Conventions to make her case, but onlythe hour of outdoor exercise each day was approved. It cost the Germans nothing to provide, but still, it was something.
The crenellated towers of Saint-Gilles Prison were visible from the roof of Delia’s hotel. Proximity to Finn’s prison was part of the reason she chose this hotel. Visiting him wasn’t possible, but she felt closer to him here. At the end of each day, as the sun melted into the horizon over the skyline of Brussels, she made the regular trek up the rickety fire escape steps to stand on the roof and gaze at the prison.
Sometimes she even whispered words of encouragement to him, praying that somehow he could sense her message.
Hang on,Finn. The war may come to an end soon. The American troopshave arrived in France,and maybe the tide will turn soon. Please don’t despair...
The vacant rooftop was ugly, just a patch of tarred gravel with a few ventilation pipes and a water tank. It was oddly reminiscent of her early years with Finn, when two lonely teenagers stole a bit of privacy to fall in love. Looking back, it had been the happiest years of her life. Despite their poverty and the uncertainty of their lives, she’d been happy.
Why had she let safety and security matter more than Finn? Why had she wasted so many years clinging to anger and bitterness? She prayed that someday Finn would walk out of the prison, allowing her the freedom to offer forgiveness and seek his in return.
Delia’s anonymity in her new neighborhood could not last forever. Her affiliation with the CRB was accidentally exposed two weeks after she arrived when she visited the post office to send a telegram to New York.
A bell dinged as she crossed the threshold, the scent of aged paper mingling with traces of tobacco from the cigar shop next door. A stooped clerk with a scowling face and shaggy eyebrows sorted letters into wooden pigeonholes behind the front counter.
“Excusez-moi,” Delia said, which was about the limit of her French. Luckily, her business wouldn’t require much of the language since she had written out the brief text for her telegram. “Le télégraphe?” she asked, pointing to the telegraph machine tucked behind the counter.
The postal clerk frowned, shook his head, and let out a long spiel in French.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
Luckily, the man spoke her language and switched to English. “We don’t send telegrams during the day anymore. My son is the operator, and they took him.”
“The Germans?”
He nodded. “Six months after the war started, they marched through town and scooped up thousands of our men, including my son. Most of them got shipped to Germany, but Joseph has a bad leg, so they kept him here to slave for the Germans. At least he gets to come home each night.”
The postal clerk introduced himself as Mr. Lemaire, and he offered to pass her message to his son, who would wire it when he got home around nine o’clock that night.
Nine o’clock wasn’t too much of a delay, so Delia handed him the message. She rooted around in her handbag for the coins to pay the fee, and by the time she looked up, the clerk gaped at her in surprise.
“You work for the CRB?” he asked.
She could have kicked herself for including that in her telegram. “I would appreciate it if you kept that confidential,” she said. Back home, postal clerks could lose their job if they invaded people’s privacy, but maybe the rules were different here. Or perhaps the war had rewritten all the rules of normal life.
