SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
MONEY NOT ACCEPTED
Laura looked from the text to Madame. It was just the kind of satire theTimestrafficked in, just the kind of joke that would make the men laugh and make the staff officers puff up in indignation. Carefully, she said, “I don’t understand.”
Madame said, “You asked who he was. I think that’s his answer, or all the answer you’ll get.”
“What can he possibly gain by—” Laura began.
Madame said sharply, “I am a woman of business, and so my answer is a businesswoman’s: He is getting a good return for his trouble, jokes and all. If you want a better answer, perhaps you should ask a priest.”
Laura hardly knew what to reply. Madame’s big-boned face was utterly serious. Laura thought of herself as rational. But the mirror over his bar was in her mind, Pim’s face and peeling gilt, the dust of that morning’s awakening.Seek and ye shall find.Well, they had.
“I also think,” added Madame carefully, “that this is a good place and a good year for monsters. And that you should go back and tell your friend that if she values her life, she will forget this man.”
Laura found herself whispering, “And if she won’t?”
“Then I am sorry for her.”
· · ·
It was dusk. Laura’s inquiries had left her with more questions than answers, a sense of bewilderment and a creeping dread. She tried to think what to do next. Speak to Young about his escaped German prisoner? Try to find Pim, warn her again off Faland? Find a way to get her sent home? But what right did Laura have to interfere? Pim wasn’t a child.
Laura turned her feet to where she’d left the motorcycle. The wind hurried, catching at her skirt and coat and the scarf over her hair. The light was strange, and the boarded-up houses had an aura of malevolence, empty windows glaring down. She stumbled over a piece of fallen masonry. The war had left its mark here too.
When she looked up again, a figure barred her way. She lurched backward, a choked-off sound surging in her throat. A familiar figure. Transposed from its place in her nightmares. Ten feet away, clear as daylight. Bloody housecoat, bloody eyes. The hand raised, a finger pointing in condemnation. “You’re not real,” Laura whispered.“You’re not real—stop. Stop!”
She was backing away, she found herself at a corner, and hurried down a different street, thinking of nothing now but of returning to the lights of the main square. But where was it? She’d walked thestreets of Poperinghe a hundred times. But now she turned and turned again, found herself in a warren of turnings, of empty windows and shattered glass, with the main square nowhere in sight.
Then the figure was standing before heragain,just the same, eyeless, pointing, and Laura spun again, a knifing pain in her lungs. She was almost running when the figure loomed a third time and Laura could bear it no more. She halted, cried out, “What do you want? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let you die.”
Did she think the dead figure would vanish, apology accepted? Did she think the dead figure was there at all? She pointed again, not at Laura but somewhere beyond. Laura turned her head, thought she saw furtive movement in the shadows just as she fell sprawling over another piece of lumber and struck her head a glancing blow.
When she got to her feet, head ringing, the figure was gone. There were voices in the street. The lights seemed brighter. A soldier turned the corner; there were ordinary passersby too. Belgians, staring. Then more soldiers turned into the street: military police. Their voices fell overloud on her ears: “He came this way. Who’s that?”
A familiar voice said, “I know her.”
Next moment, men were clustered round her and a pocket torch dazzled her eyes. A face half-seen, half-familiar hovered behind the light. “Why,” said the voice, “Miss Iven, are you all right? What are you doing here? Did you see him?”
“See whom?” said Laura, trying to collect herself.
“Oh,” said Young—for it was he, flushed and eager, his ears as big as ever—“the escaped German. They say he’s gone to ground in…But no, you don’t know. Sorry to distress you.” Young was being chivalrous and soothing. It came to Laura that he was rather a nice boy, certainly a sincere one. He kept talking, and she was grateful for the inconsequential, well-bred flow; it gave her time to settle her breathing: “Such a coincidence to see you here! Mrs. Shaw is coming to us this evening, as I’m sure you know. Should you like to see her? Perhaps you’d like a bite of supper yourself?”
Laura wouldn’t have turned him down even if she’d had thepresence of mind to say anything at all; she wanted to see Pim. Young gave his men orders and offered Laura his arm. He was far better suited to escorting women than hunting fugitives; Laura read as much on his men’s wooden faces. They started off together and the last ten minutes began to feel very much a dream.
The whole main square was alive with men and lorries and lights and cafés with doors hospitably open to the softening spring air. Laura expected Young would be meeting Pim in a café. But he led her to Fifth Army headquarters instead.
It had been built into Poperinghe’s town hall: a sensible building repurposed for war. Telephone wires looped the outside in swags, and endless messengers, on motorcycles and bicycles and horseback, hurried to and fro.
“My uncle insisted on hosting dinner,” explained Young. “He was so impressed, you know, by Mrs. Shaw, her courage, you know.” Was he babbling? He must be properly in love, to sound so nervous. Then she thought,Is that love?He sounded so—apprehensive.
She said carefully, “Any success in your search for the German? He is in Pop, you believe?”
“I—” Young seemed distracted. “No, we haven’t caught him yet, no. But we heard—there was a report—we suspected he was here—it’s only a matter of time.” He sounded as if his mind was elsewhere. “I am so glad you are here, truly, Miss Iven, I think you will be a great comfort to your friend.”
Laura was puzzled. She knew of Pim’s distress, but wasn’t it strange that Pim would have confided in the hapless Young?
They went into HQ and up a flight of stairs and it turned out that dinner was not an intimate affair, at all; there were other officers present and a few volunteer nurses of better birth than Laura. Three of the nurses knew her; there were exclamations, a flurry of reminiscences. Laura tried not to look distracted. Pim was already seated, talking to Gage. Young’s eye went straight to her as they walked in; he looked at Pim as though she were a mermaid fished up from the deep.
