The man shrugged. “I’m a Belgian first, Red Cross worker second.”
Delia urged him to hurry because the trickle of former prisoners had turned into a flood. Delia shielded her eyes from the sun,straining to see each face. Most of the men had beards, and surely Finn would as well.
“Help me search for Finn,” she said to Gita.
“What does he look like?”
She and Gita had grown so close over the past months, it was hard to remember that Gita had never met Finn. “He has blond hair that’s probably long and shaggy by now. And he’s got the bluest eyes; you can drown in them. He’s tall and has a bad leg, so he limps when he walks. Not as much as Joseph, but still, he limps a little.” She knew she was babbling, but excitement made it impossible to stop talking because in just a few short minutes, she was going to finally welcome Finn back into the world of freedom.
The throngs of prisoners walking out the gates was so thick that she couldn’t see them all. She hoisted up her skirts to climb atop a bench. Now she could look down on the steady flow of tired, elated, and bewildered prisoners as they shuffled down the cobblestone street. Most were men, but a few women were in the mix too.
“See anything?” Gita asked.
“No.”
It was too early to panic. There were around five hundred people imprisoned in Saint-Gilles, and only a few hundred people had walked through the gates. Ten people were still being held in solitary confinement down in the basement, and perhaps it was taking longer for those prisoners to be released. She must not panic yet, but her stomach felt sour.
Soon Gita joined her on the bench, and the two of them stood there scanning the former prisoners as they slowly plodded down the street. These ones looked thinner and more bedraggled than the earlier prisoners.
Oh,Finn,where are you?Delia silently begged. Maybe she needed to go inside the prison to search for him. The German guards still flanked the entrance, and none of the civilians had entered the prison. But if Delia had to go inside and search every cell, she was going to find him.
“There he is!” Gita called out.
Delia froze and looked to where Gita was pointing. At first all she saw was Joseph, heading their way with a man slumped against his shoulder. He was filthy, his hair covering most of his face, and his feet were bare, swollen...
“Finn?”
When the man looked up, Delia nearly fainted because itwasFinn. His face crumpled when he saw her, and he almost toppled over, but Joseph propped him back up. She leaped off the bench and angled her way through the crowds to reach his side.
“I thought you went back to New York,” he said, his voice stunned.
“Never,never,never. I’d never leave Belgium while you were still here.” She opened her arms, and he reached out to grab her, squeezing her tightly. Her heart nearly split at how sharp his bones felt beneath the threadbare coat, but he was out, and he was here. He was hers again.
“Thank God you’re alive,” she choked out against his shoulder. “I’m going to take you home and take the best care of you. I’ll get you cleaned up and feed you something warm and rich and sweet. I’ll kiss you and hold you and never let you go again.”
His breath caught and was ragged. “Dee, I’m about to start bawling, which is completely at odds with the moment.”
She laughed, even as she grieved his frail condition. She clutched his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, and he gasped. It was a gasp of pain, not pleasure, and she immediately let go. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m not in good shape, Dee,” he said with a half smile that nearly broke her heart all over again. “I can’t really walk anymore. If Joseph hadn’t helped me out of my cell...”
Delia knew the cure for his illness. Nourishing food would do the trick, although the best she could offer at the moment was the chocolate bar. When she held the familiar Hershey’s candy bar out to him, his face crumpled again, and then he did start bawling inearnest. He buried his face in her neck and sobbed, and she held him gently, stroking his back as tears fogged her vision too.
“It’s going to be okay,” she soothed. “Everything is going to be okay now.”
Church bells continued to peal, and a spontaneous singing of the national anthem broke out among the liberated prisoners. There would be time enough in the years ahead for lamentations and rebuilding. Today, however, was for celebration.
43
Finn sat on a wicker chair on the hospital veranda, the scent of freshly cut grass and damp earth rising with the soft breeze. With slow, practiced strokes, he used the blade of his pocketknife to carve a slender strip of wood, shaving it down to the perfect curve for a kite’s frame.
He had been at the convalescent hospital in Le Havre for two months. His recovery took longer than expected because malnutrition had left his muscles severely atrophied, his nerves damaged, and his heart weakened. The swelling in his lower limbs eventually subsided, but lingering neuropathy in his hands and feet made even simple movements painful.
He was mostly healed now, and making kites had been the perfect task for regaining his dexterity. He was ready to be discharged, but the troopships heading home were fully booked for months, and the hotels in Le Harve had all been requisitioned for the soldiers waiting to sail home. That meant the hospital was the only place for Finn to stay. Every day, he sat on the veranda overlooking the harbor, where a collection of masts, cranes, and ships could be seen in the distance. The same ships that were ferryingtroops homeward. Soon he would leave too, but right now he had to wait his turn.
So here he sat, building kites in a seaside villa once meant for holidaymakers, but now used as a convalescent hospital for recuperating soldiers. A row of wicker chairs lined the patio, where a dozen other men dozed or read in the quiet lull of midmorning. Finn passed the time by making the kites, which he then gave to his fellow soldiers as gifts.
The wind blowing off the English Channel was brisk enough to raise the kites with ease, and it was impossible not to smile when seeing them soaring in the sea breeze. One of the doctors told Finn that his kites were some of the best medicine he’d yet seen for war-weary soldiers.
