“Truce.” She spat wetly on her own palm, then clasped it to his, squeezing so tight a drop of saliva dribbled to the ground.
From up the road, a rotund woman hooted, her arms waving above a curly cloud of hair.
“Speak of the devil,” Fiadh said. “If it isn’t Theresa O’Kane come to fetch her babies.”
Conor threw his head back. “Sheesh, Mam!”
“I heard about these girls, Fiadh. I want a photograph.” She held up a brown camera that dangled from her neck by a leather strap. “Notoften we have visitors.” Gisela moved closer to Elisabeth. The woman had the same eyes as her boys, blue patches like shallows in dark waters.
“Have you ever gotten a photograph from that thing?” Jem asked. “You say you’re taking pictures, but we never see a single likeness.”
“Do as I say,” Theresa said, “or I’ll whip you. I mean it, now. Go on.” She gestured to the wall. Gisela followed Fiadh, who trudged dutifully. Denis jumped on the wall and crouched in a pose. Jem and Conor stood on either side of Fiadh, who crossed her arms. Gisela sat on the wall, her legs dangling, arms stiff. Elisabeth shrugged and did the same.
“Hold still now,” Theresa said.
Gisela marveled at the wild black hair, the busy fussing with the contraption. She leaned forward slightly to squint at Fiadh, whose head was cocked toward Conor. Elisabeth grabbed her hand as the camera popped.
“Lord knows what we got there.” Theresa blew on her fingertips, stared into the lens as if the photograph was assembling in the camera’s guts. She walked away, talking to herself.
“That’s done, I guess,” Jem said. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
The girls astride followed Denis down the clover path through the field that led to the water’s edge. Jem and Conor brought up the rear. Gisela felt their eyes on her back, flicked her head around periodically to check on them. Fiadh tilted to Elisabeth. “You like Jem? Gisela can have Denis.” She covered her mouth and giggled.
Gisela squinted at Denis, seared a dagger into his thick skull.Yellow hair, like Hitler boys with their spidery armbands. Like Herbert.She felt a thick pinch on her ass and twisted around. Fiadh gasped at the same time, her face flushing red.
“Conor O’Kane!” Fiadh yelled, stopping the procession.
“What happened?” Elisabeth whispered.
Gisela shook her head.
Conor held his hands out at his sides, threw his head back in wild laughter. “Fee! Your arse is the better handful than the German’s, that’s for sure!”
Fiadh marched at Conor until they were face-to-face. His bemused look said he enjoyed riling Fiadh up. Gisela expected fists to fly, but instead Conor grabbed Fiadh by the waist, spun her around to the path again, and swatted her on the behind. Gisela’s mouth fell open. Beside her, Elisabeth gasped. But Fiadh lowered her chin and pursed her lips. Her eyes drifted from side to side and a tiny smile lifted her lips. Over her shoulder, she said, “The only arse here is you, Conor O’Kane.”
Jem punched Conor’s shoulder, and Conor rubbed it as if it hurt, but the grin on his face said otherwise. Denis, well up the path and oblivious to the commotion, yelled back, “Ya comin’ or what?”
“That boy knows just how to get under my skin!” Fiadh said, wiping at her mouth like she’d bit into overripe fruit. She waved at Denis. “Yeah, yeah!”
They proceeded like the altercation never happened, Conor and Jem behind the girls. Gisela, still smarting from where Conor had grabbed her, stole a glance over her shoulder. Denis reminded her of the brainless Hitler boys, but maybe it was this brother, the one with the dark gleam, who was Little Red Cap’s wolf, the real threat in this green place. She would have to keep her eyes wide and her ears perked.
Chapter Four
1946
And so began a summer of cuckoo birds and lobster pots, shearing sheep and cutting turf. While Hannie kept house, sweeping the soft floor, turning sheep’s wool into sweaters and flax into dresses, the girls skipped rocks and rowed the nutshell punt along the shallows, looking for hake and mackerel to scoop up in their nets. They walked paths and fields barefoot, impervious to pokes from bramble and briar and prickly yellow furze. They learned English by singing songs about gypsies and rovers, little birds and mermaids, by skipping rope to rhymes. In the barn, Hugh pointed to the pail, the teat, the milk, calf, hay, sheep, lamb. Words and words and words. Gisela ate them like chips. She didn’t want to speak German anymore, the language of shouting and commands, the language of war. She couldn’t imagine going back. Not ever.
Most days the girls played together with the O’Kane boys when they weren’t busy with chores in the fields and on the docks. In those three months, they’d come to a gentle accord, ribbing more playful than hurtful, though there was still hair pulling and rock throwing. Even Conor settled down, abating Gisela’s suspicions.
Twilight to moonrise, the six of them danced along stone walls until the washtub called. And in the attic next to Elisabeth, who no longer whispered her every thought, on a pallet with a wool mattress covered in ticking and quilted blankets, in this green place where there wereno land mines in the fields, no bothersome cousins in her bed, Gisela slept dreamlessly.
Gisela and Elisabeth sat on a tree stump nestled against the thick stone wall of the cottage. They had spent the morning weeding Hannie’s swede garden and picking potato bugs off green leaves. Fiadh stomped up to them in a pitch.
“We’re leaving. Off to America. Off to America the Beautiful. America. Ha.” She spat on the ground.
“What do you mean?” Gisela stood and looked around as if a boat that would carry her friend away was waiting in the bay. Fiadh was as much Ireland as the thatched roofs, the dots of sheep on the green hill, the sun-specked sea in the distance.
“You’re not leaving! You can’t,” Elisabeth cried.
